Towards sustainable urban design; Developing automated visibility analysis tools to be used along the urban planning and design development process

In order to develop and maintain sustainable urban design, new methods and tools are needed to evaluate the environmental quality of the urban fabric. This research proposes development of 3- dimensional visual analysis models and automated tools based on GIS technology in order to evaluate urban environments relating to privacy aspects, on one hand, and openness to the view on the other. This research aims to emphasize the point of view of urban designers and architects.